


Eden

by TheManWhoRegrets



Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:02:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3746830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManWhoRegrets/pseuds/TheManWhoRegrets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after Ax left, the Andalite returns to earth, just in time to find the slightly drunk Marco on his graduation ball</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eden

There we go. Dim light, soft music, a rich buffet and young people dancing. That’s what a graduation prom should look like. Well, and then there is me, Marco, known to everyone as the funny short Hispanic. I am here alone, no date to the prom. It’s not that I didn’t ask anyone out, actually I asked all off them out, with even funny proposals, but they all rejected. They love to have me around, they say I am cute and funny, but none of them actually wants a date. Why date a guy who’s like a head shorter than you, if you can have a quarterback or whatever. I am obviously no one to fall in love with, someone to keep around if you grew tired of ‘your girls’, someone no boyfriend would see as a threat. I get it. I’m a forever sidekick. I also thought about not coming at all, but why I miss a great buffet? I waited for this my whole school life, trading in the gross cantina food for the finest for just one evening. And so I spend the past hours shovelling food in and drinking the punch they offer. We’re old enough to drink now, at least that’s what the law says. But when I see these girls with dresses way too short rubbing themselves against the males as if their dicks could grant wishes, I doubt that some of them should drink. Of course not this prom, nor there high school prom or any prom before or after are made to be all innocent. I press my eyelids shut, I’m already feeling how the alcohol works in my body, flushing my cheeks. My father would probably be disappointed, but say nothing, it’s my graduation he’d say. I don’t want to disappoint him, but if you these all this girls dancing by, seeing them giving you that look you never want to see on a female’s face, the mix of being sorry and proud of who they got instead of me, then even the punch seems a decent partner for the evening. The last time I danced, oh god, this was long ago, it was with Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill or how I called him, Ax, the blue Andalite, who came to life and then… left and over the years it nearly felt as if all this never happened. An Alien with horse legs, a blade tail and stalk eyes on his head. Sometimes I feel like before somehow falling asleep I mixed up stories of E.T. and some fantasy story about centaurs and in my sleep my mind somehow formed Ax, but I know he was real! He had to be. Dear Lord, I will have a terrible headache tomorrow, I can already feel it. My mind is getting hazy. I don’t even care for how the teachers look at me, how their eyes make me feel like I was the alien. Maybe that’s it, maybe I just don’t fit in, and maybe I should do what Ax did and… Leave. No one really wants me here, it’s too loud to let me make a dumb joke and sitting in a corner and drinking does not actually make me a good party guest.

I try to stand up, a bad mistake as I figured out now. The whole evening I just had been drinking punch after punch and barely moved away from the spot, not even the enormous load of food I eat could cover the alcohol I exposed to my body. Everything is spinning around me. Has the room always been this curvy? Why did the people clone and are now here twice? Alright Marco, keep it cool, just set one feet in front of another, slowly but determined until you reach the door and when I feel the cold night air hits my face I will get sober. My father is probably already asleep and I sneak in and fall into my bed. W-What the… I got distracted by my own mind and stumbled, and the room starts spinning even more, holy heck, the floor drifts away, I swear, where is the ground gone? My steps get sloppier, I try to find my balance, but I fail more and more with every try. I can feel the people staring at me, embarrassed, feeling even more sorry for me. No one even tries to help me. I can’t stand anymore, can’t walk anymore, I gotta greet the ground. There it comes.

Wait. This is not the ground. My hands meet warmth and softness, far away from the ground. Lazily my eyes flutter open. “I am fascinated what ethyl alcohol – lohol –hol does to the human body”, an all too familiar voice whistles kind of far away. “A-Ax?”, now I am the one who stumbles over words. No, it couldn’t be Ax, he has left years ago to his Andalite home homeworld. Maybe I crushed to the ground and lost awareness and now people are dancing over me as if I was just one other spot on the floor. “It is your graduation prom dance… isn’t it?”, the voice goes on, while I feel one arm being wrapped around my back. Now I finally dare to look up, through my haziness I can see him, see him so crystal clear. The brown curls, and the full lips. Either this was a really vivid dream or it was really his alien friend, he hadn’t seen for years. “You have worked on your body figure –gure –ure… Didn’t you?”, Ax whispered while he tried to tangle his other hand with mine. Well, if it was a dream, I could at least enjoy it. I slackly wrap my arms around the alien. “Remember our last dance? Wow… That was long ago”, I giggle childishly. “Not too long”, Ax replies as he slowly tries to move our bodies over the floor. For me it’s already too fast though I know he is moving just a little. “For me time passes differently”, the alien explains, “One year to me is like… 84 of your human years, so it felt like a short time… So-“ – “To me it felt like an eternity”, I interrupt Ax, I know time passes differently for us and if I am dead already, Ax probably barely aged a year. Maybe one time Ax would have some busy month on the Andalite homeworld and when he returns he will find all of the Animorphs dead because he forgot about the different times. But no, I don’t want this thoughts now, I can barely concentrate on dancing right now. Ax leads now, he leads me over the floor, but we casually bump into other couples dancing. The alien can barely hold me in a straight line. “How much of the alcoholic liquid di you drink, Marco. Your skin temperature –rature – ure is unusually high”, Ax sighs. Probably too much, I admit it. “I”, I start but before I can finish even my thought I stumble again and fall against Ax’s chest, who tries to make me stand again, but he is unsure of how to do it. We have to be a weird picture to the others, not because we are two guys dancing, no body minds that. It’s just the way how we are dancing, if you can even call this dancing. We are just two idiots stumbling over the floor, ok, I am the idiot. Ax is great. This couldn’t be a dream. No. I don’t want this to be a dream. Nights over nights I either spend awake watching the stars hoping that Ax would come back or I dreamed about him being here or awoke to the sad truth. Ax was not there. I try to sort myself and make some straight steps. He came from too far for a shitty dance, Ax should enjoy the dance and I woud try to enjoy myself, even if my mind fogged more and more. 

But one realisation is in my mind so clear. What if it was all about him? All the time? What if the reason I didn’t got a single date the past years, that I am on this prom alone, weren’t the girls friendzoning me, not seeing a serious opportunity in me. What if it was me rejecting the girls subconsciously with my loose mouth, making them feel like I wasn’t interested in something substantial. What if the reason for my loneliness is right in front of me? The moment I realised,, who was holding me, a warmth filled my body. Not the same warmth as the alcohol, a comfortable warmth coming along with pure happiness. I was shocked and mesmerized at the same point. Yes, I missed this stupid smart alien thing and curse him for leaving me alone for so long, but when I felt his arms around me, as I looked up, catching his look, I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t frustrated, I was just happy. Happier than I should be. I feel like I never want to miss him again, I never want to see him leave again. Of course I could never say it to Ax, not only because I am not sure whether he feels the same – If I even knew what I feel – but I couldn’t ask him to turn his back to his planet and stay with me on earth. And even if he stays, how would our life be? We had to hide somewhere away from everyone and eventually I would grow older and older and Ax would watch me getting sick and die. No, I could not do this to him. Even this was just phantasy, maybe I could admit these more-than-just-friendship feelings to myself, I can’t be sure about Ax. Why would he even fall in love with me? Man, he is a super intelligent alien species, who knows how to travel space and morph and whatever, why would he fall for something so small and minor like a human. Just look around. We humans want to be so smart, but we are fighting over money and killing our own kind, degrading them for stupid things like sexuality or skin colour or ethnics. As if we choose where we are born or as what. In school I was already told, by fellow students, hell, even by teachers, that my future probably wasn’t that bright, that not every path was open for me just because I am Hispanic. I could not believe that it was true, I believe after our history of slavery and wars we changed and became smarter, but that’s not what happened. Don’t tell me I am overdramatic. I tried to apply for summer jobs in restaurants as waiter or in stores as cashier, no one wanted me as they saw me face to face. One of them even had he nerves to tell me to ‘rather search on an asparagus or strawberry field for a job instead of something … representative’. Yes. That is what we humans are, sure, not all of us, but the majority. Why would Ax even want to stay on a planet as destructive as this? Why would he fall for one of these creatures? In pure frustration I lean my head against Ax chest, I inhale his human scent, that if you smelled a little longer wasn’t so human. It was too clean, too pure. You couldn’t smell alcohol or cigarettes or even pollution in his fabrics.

“We should get you home”, Ax whispered leaning down to my ear, “You seem to be unwell and I-“ – “I undersand”, I quickly say, but I was pretty confused. Doesn’t he want me to lean my head against him? Maybe it was too close. Or Ax was just close to his two hour limit. “I-I don’t think you…”- “It’s alight. We shhhould lea- ve”, I babble and try to sound confident, but alcohol and the things swirling around my mind make it really hard. I don’t want this situation going awkward. I mean, more than I already made it. In fact, some fresh air wouldn’t be too bad. The alcohol was fully controlling my body now and I feel sneaking into my mind. The urge grows to open my mouth and tell Ax, how I feel, about him, about us,that I want to believe in an “us”. What is the worst that could happen? I see two scenarios here. One, Ax returns my feelings, but we both know, no matter how much we want it, it wouldn’t work out. We could not have a long distance relationship, not over 82 light years. So maybe they would have a nice … whatever… And then part with a passionate memory and move on with their lives. Or Ax doesn’t love me, then he will vanish and I can move on. Slowly. Really slowly. And if I don’t tell him, basically the same will happen: He will return to his planet… And I have to move on. That’s it. But, I guess I should not tell him at all. Whatever will happen if I tell him, we would feel bad and I don’t want him to feel bad. So I just let him lead me out and I won’t say a thing, if my mind doesn’t decide otherwise.


End file.
